


Going Home

by thedevilchicken



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 07:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: When Queen Daenerys made her Warden of the North and asked her who, if anyone, she wished to marry, Sansa shocked them all by sayingTheon Greyjoy.





	Going Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



When Queen Daenerys made her Warden of the North and asked her who, if anyone, she wished to marry, Sansa shocked them all by saying _Theon Greyjoy_. 

"The Ironborn have their own queen," Daenerys said, "so I can't command him come to Winterfell." She paused. Sitting on the Iron Throne, Daenerys Targaryen looked more regal then than Joffrey ever had, Sansa thought, but when she stood and came down and placed her hands on Sansa's shoulders, she smiled. Then, she was less queen to her than sister. 

It had taken them months to come to that, past the queen's deep Targaryen distrust of House Stark, but Jon had helped to smooth the way. Sansa had never thought to be grateful for Jon Snow before King Robert came to Winterfell. Now, he's as much her brother as Robb or Bran or Rickon ever were. They send ravens. These days, she can even read his handwriting.

"I can't command him but I'll send a rider," Daenerys said. "If you're certain." 

"I'm certain," Sansa told her, because she'd had the time to think, and Daenerys nodded as she turned away. Conversation moved on then, more matters to discuss before they parted ways, and the following dawn a rider set out with a message for Pyke as Sansa Stark set out for Winterfell. When she arrived there, cold and tired and hungry from the ride, weeks later though the journey was shortened by their lack of carts and carriages this time, Theon was already there. He was waiting for her. 

He should have looked out of place in his Ironborn clothing, but he seemed at home if not at ease. Sansa wondered if either of them would ever feel at ease in that place, after everything they'd seen and done. She'd almost asked leave to remain in King's Landing or to marry a southern lord and stay where it was warmer, manage a house and not a great swath of the kingdom - she'd rehearsed the words inside her head though she knew she couldn't say them. She's a Stark: she belongs in the North.

Theon smiled at her tightly from his seat by the fire. She remembers joining him, standing by him, and how she had to keep her cloak around her shoulders - he'd chosen a spot where the breeze from the door would chill him almost as much as the fire would warm him. She supposes that she understood. 

"You came," she said. 

"Well, the queen sent a letter."

"Is this yes?" 

"Can I refuse?"

Sansa frowned at him, pausing as she removed her riding gloves and tried to decide if he was joking or serious. "Of course you can," she said. "You can give whatever response you wish to."

"I won't."

"You won't what?"

His mouth twisted, not quite a smile but not quite not. "I won't refuse," he said. When she saw the look on his face as he glanced away into the fire, and she understood exactly why that was. But the glimmer of humour was a start, at least.

They were married four days later, in the godswood in the snow. A feast followed but the bedding didn't, perhaps as much from what the Winterfell folk knew of Ramsay Bolton and the things he'd done as from the somber mood of the whole affair. The years hadn't been kind to the North, perhaps more than anywhere, and no one understood her bringing Theon Greyjoy back to Winterfell. She was mistress there, however; they didn't have to understand.

But still, bedding or no, Theon climbed the stairs behind her when the feast was over, just as he was meant to. She opened her bedchamber door and she went inside; she began to take off her dress and he turned away, the way he'd used to, before the times when Ramsay had told him to look. 

"Help me," she said, and he turned back, frowning, but he went to her. He unlaced her dress and helped her out of it, the fingers he had left brushing at her skin almost like he meant it, almost like he wanted to, and once upon a time she might have blushed when she slipped out of her things and stood there naked. Once upon a time, she might have felt ashamed or afraid or humiliated, and she felt somehow with anyone but him, she might have been. But that wasn't why she'd asked for him. She could have lived with shame, or fear, or humiliation, and perhaps learned to overcome those things, in time. She could have chosen any of so many men. It hadn't had to be him. 

"Do you know why I chose you?" she asked. 

"Yes," he replied. 

"Are you certain?"

He frowned at her, not quite meeting her gaze. "Yes," he said, his expression perhaps irritated and perhaps ashamed.

"What if I told you you're wrong?"

That was when he looked at her, and the expression on his face told her everything that she needed to know. He was stronger then than he had been, but he still wasn't strong. He was the same way she was.

"You think this is because of Ramsay," she said, though she still hated to say the name out loud. "You think it's because of what you know he did to me and what I know he did to you. You think I don't want to let a man touch me and you think I think you're not a man, so this is my solution." 

She stepped forward. She set her hands at his shoulders; she wondered if he'd always wear the kraken as he did that day, that night, or if one day he'd wear the wolf. 

She'd spoken to the maester about him, in frank terms that had made her blush and made him raise his brows as if questioning her upbringing that she could put her voice to words like those. But Sansa is her mother's daughter, perhaps more so than she's her father's, and her mother was a force. Catelyn Stark could have ruled the North just as well as Eddard had, she knew that, and so Sansa would not be waylaid. He'd told her what she wanted to know.

"My septa always said there are many ways to make love," she told him, and perhaps then she did blush faintly, high across her cheekbones. She slid one hand down over his tunic, pressed it over the laces of the trousers that he wore, where she knew parts of him were missing, and he winced at her touch and at that lack. Not all of them were missing, though - she'd seen that, she knew that, thanks to Ramsay. And the maester had said the only thing that would keep her husband from enjoyment was himself. He didn't need a full length of cock between his legs like the one he'd had to father children, no matter what the smallfolk's superstitions said about it. He didn't need a full length of cock like he'd had before the war to find some kind of pleasure in it. He just had to find new ways.

"Your septa was wrong," he said. 

She shook her head, with a hint of a smile; she could feel what little there was left of him stir beneath her palm. "I don't think she was," he told him. "And I want to find that out. But that's not the reason, either."

She stepped closer. She lifted her hands; she cupped his jaw. 

"I think if you can be here then so can I," she said. "If you're here, maybe Winterfell can feel like home again."

Slowly, his frown gave way. Slowly, he lifted his hands to her bare hips and he let himself let them rest there, cautiously. 

"Come to bed," she said, and he nodded. He followed where she led him, and when she asked him to undress for her, he did. She didn't mind what she saw and she still doesn't. She's had years to persuade him of that and these days, when she tells him _come to bed_ , he doesn't hesitate. He smiles instead. Sometimes he sweeps her off her feet and carries her and she laughs out loud though she knows that isn't ladylike. Sometimes, she doesn't care about that. Together, they're strong. 

They named their eldest son Robb and their first daughter Catelyn, and these days Theon wears the wolf. Sansa thinks maybe he was always meant to.

She made the right choice. And Winterfell feels like home again, for both of them.


End file.
